


What The Water Gave Me

by Tinuviel



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Drowning, Fun at Bard College, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 01:32:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15920190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinuviel/pseuds/Tinuviel
Summary: How the Gem of the Bardic College became a dead woman





	What The Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> this is for my dm who wanted backstory after i kept alluding to everything, i tried to avoid taking liberties with your original story except maybe deciding there was a river beside the college oops

Seraphina was lounging, surveying her luxuriously decorated office like a queen over a kingdom. It was everything she had wanted for so long, everything she deserved. Curled in a elegant red armchair, she scanned the room, marvelling at individual treasures she had amassed with her skill. A crystal jewel box filled to the brim with pendants and rings of the finest gold, silver and jewels, Closet near bursting with opulent gowns and performing attire, and her instrument collection; harps, lutes, flutes, and whatever else suited her fancy, all of the same quality she demanded of everything else: flawless. 

Her crystal harp was the paramount of all else, the true mark of her office of Professor at the Bard’s college. It was enchanted to amplify the harp’s sound no matter how large the venue, and it was her dearest possession...outside a small silver dagger hidden in the false bottom of her desk drawer. 

Seraphina was a talented musician, there was no denying that, however she was so much more than the dreary folk at the college could even know. 

Once, a dirty orphan half elf was taken off the streets by a kind professor at the city’s shining bard college. He taught her everything he knew about music, performing, and the art of Whispers. 

Her teacher was a Master of Whispers, the black sheep of all Bards so to speak. Infiltration, persuasion, charming, and sometimes even assassination, Bards of this path were hated by almost everyone else, for tarnishing their stuffy image or something or the other, and Seraphina took to it like a fish in water. She was used to being hated, looked down on by all her other classmates for her lack of status and lack of riches, she coveted what they had, and hated them all for it. Her hate was enough for fuel her studies and desire, she would become better than them all, the biggest gem in the shining tiara, all while being the very thing they hated. 

As a performer, she as the darling of the stage. A singer, a songwriter, a savant of instruments. A bright smile and teal eyes you couldn’t help but love. Nobles fell over backwards to have her in their court, she traveled, dressed, and ate on their dime, _Brightsong_ they called her,all while she was working under their very noses. A payment and a letter to the right address and she would become the whisper of discord and fear. She would even kill if the price was right. A dress can always be thrown out after all. 

When Seraphina’s teacher retired, she took his place as a professor of song, teaching upper level students the art of the harp, and on occasion, selecting just the right person to become a whisper as well. Currently, she had 4 students. Loyal, quiet, lacking in the morals to not murder, and above all else, a hunger for all the coin and fame leading a dual life like this could offer. 

She delegates them marks and duties, all with the gentle reminder of how alone they will be if they fail her. A warning in a mother’s voice, laced with enough magic to put fear into her own apprentices. Seraphina didn’t abide mistakes, let alone ones that could tarnish her name. 

Abandoned and raised by the streets, and then taught the art of murder by a kind mask over a rotten interior, Seraphina had little room in her heart for anything more than gold and glory. She enjoyed her flings and affairs, playing mistress for the gifts afforded, enjoying lovers for a pastime and good sex, but it was nothing more than that. Silly things like love couldn’t erase what she had been through, but enough jewels and gowns and she might forget she was once the filth of the streets. 

The ornate grandfather clock in the corner chimed 12 and Seraphina rose to her feet, placing the half empty glass of brandy down on her desk. Although she was used to staying up late into the night, an early harp class would need her attention should she not wish to lose her temper on those hapless students. She paced around her office, setting things away, closing the heavy drapes, and throwing an extra log on to the fire place, before heading towards the door leading to her equally elegant bedroom. Before she got very far, there was a knock at her office door. It was heavy and urgent, and altogether unwanted at this hour of night. Throwing her silk dressing gown on she approached the door, and unlatched the five dead bolts before opening it. 

“What on earth are you making such a racket for at this time of night!?”

She had expected a student, but instead, it was the Dean of the College, a host of the other professors, and…..her newest apprentice. (Bart? Bartholomew? She could never remember their names.) 

“Professor Seraphina, may we come in? We need to ask you some questions.” 

This was going to be very bad. 

Plastering on her best smile, she stepped away, opening the door wide to her office.

“Come in, is there anything I can get you? Tea? Brandy?” 

The Dean cleared his throat and turned towards her once the rest of the procession was closed inside her office. 

“No no Professor, I’m afraid this is too important. Lawrence here got caught late this night attempting to murder a traveling noble man staying in the Inn, when the guards recognized him as a student of the college they took him to us, and he said that he was put up to it by you…” 

Seraphina flinched back, feigning shock and surprise, but in reality there was rage building in her chest. How could this little snip break his oath like this, let alone get past her spell enough to admit she was the one handing out missions. (also, that she got his name so horribly wrong, that was impressive even by her standards.) 

“What? Why on earth would I be involved in such a thing, I’m a harpist and performer, not some shadowy master assassin. The only thing I’ve ever injured in my life was a wild dog that attacked my carriage.”

Leaning against her desk, she shifted her weight just enough to have some papers slide further over the false bottom in the drawer, just in case. 

“Now, a great many of us would never suspect one of our most successful colleagues of such a thing, but the guards detected a strong fear spell on Lawrence, and once it was removed, he went on and on about how you’re secretly a Bard of the College of Whispers, and you take apprentices on and send them out to on various nefarious duties. The three other students Lawrence named are currently away on leave, but after searching their rooms, we found various weapons and coded messages, that after some work, all named you.” 

“Sir really-” 

“She has a knife in her desk! It makes you tell the truth when she cuts with it, it’s how she knows when we’ve completed our missions successfully.” 

Gods help this boy if she ever got her hands around his scrawny neck, she would relish in choking the life from him. 

Before she could even get a word in, 3 of the other professors strode past her, throwing the drawers of her desk out onto the ground. She flinched as she heard glass shatter, not even sure what they just broke, just that she was about to be very unhappy. And then the unfortunate clatter of the false bottom popping out, and that silver dagger skitting out with a chime that sounded like death to Seraphina’s ears.

“That’s it!”

“Goodness, look at what a mess you made, am I not allowed to keep a dagger with me? Not to mention a keepsake? It’s never been used for anything short of a package opener- “One of the male professors snatched her arm, and with little care for her at all, drew a quick line against her wrist and faced the Dean. 

If she was about to get undone by her own magics, oh there would be hell to pay she would tear this damned sorry college down brick by brick with her own goddamn hands. 

“Are you of the College of Whispers, Seraphina Brightsong?”

Seraphina gritted her teeth, trying to fight against the spell. 

“Yes.” 

And unfortunately losing. 

The reaction of the Dean and all the professors was almost immediate, closing in on her and gripping her arms so she couldn’t get away, and moving as a unit, practically carrying her outside into the hall and down the spiral staircase.

Her heavy ruby pendant thumped against her chest as they pulled her down the steps, the pendant she got when she took up office as a Professor, with how this night was turning out she half expected it to start burning her. 

The procession finally stopped when they were down by the college docks, grown three sizes and twice as angry it seemed, close to the mouth of the violent river that it was built beside. Why were they here? Were they sending her somewhere by boat for trial? In her damned nightclothes no less, how dare they do this to her. “Seraphina Brightsong, it has come to our attention that you have been covertly working against everything we bards hold dear, you have lied, manipulated, even murdered, and coerced students of your own choosing to do the same. You are a shame upon our college, and with how well known you are, to have a trial would have dire consequences on the college. This is the only way.” 

She could barely hear what the old man was saying over the roaring water, and only when she was pushed forward did she understand what was happening. And as her feet found nothing but air and water beneath her, Seraphina remembered what fear was for the first time in a very long while. 

The air was gone from her lungs the second her body hit the water, the current dragging her deep,and bashing her small body against rocks. Seraphina could feel her consciousness ebbing like the tides themselves, and the frigidly cold water was beginning to numb even the feeling of pain from the rapids. Every once in a while, she would bob to the surface, lungs screaming for air before she was pulled under again. It was a cycle of almost dying, a cycle she was fighting against as hard as she could, but when she opened her eyes to the deep blue trench that was the river, she feared she might truly have breathed her last. 

When she finally felt the current slow to a meandering pace, she was certain she had finally died, Seraphina was a bard, a talented one to be sure, but she was no warrior to survive a current like that alive. But when her frozen hands felt the muddy bank of the shore, she pulled with whatever strength she had left and collapsed there in the grass. Black hair and torn nightgown sopping wet and cold, and a ruby pendant shining in the moonlight. Seraphina stared at the river, watching driftwood pass her by. She could feel the rage of what they had done to her eating at her stomach, she utter indignation that someone of her stature could be treated like this, she was their gem, their brightsong. 

But she wasn’t that anymore, was she? No, now she was a dead woman in their eyes, drowned in the river, and barely suitable for any hymns or prayers. A disgrace, the ruination of their pretty little college, oh she wanted to pull it all down, pull it down around the ears of those stuffy full blood elves in their pretty white towers who tore all she worked for away because they couldn’t damage their reputation. 

So if Seraphina Brightsong was dead, then Seraphina Riverhymn would get her revenge. 

**Author's Note:**

> now you better not spoil everyone else rachael


End file.
